The Judas Child Read online

  Dr. Cray stared at the bag, and Rouge wondered if the man held his breath. He seemed confused, and Rouge decided that this confrontation with a fungus was far from what he had expected.

  “What can you tell me about it, sir?” Costello held the bag up, and his eyes were suddenly very bright. The captain’s grin was inappropriate and unnerving.

  Medical Examiner Howard Chainy looked up from his microscope and rolled his eyes to heaven. “What’s the world come to, Leonard? You got me doing an autopsy on a damn fungus, and now you want a psychiatrist to analyze it?”

  “A macrofungus, actually,” said Mortimer Cray, peering at the bag through thick bifocals. “It’s a truffle.”

  Did the man seem relieved? The stiffening of his body passed off like premature rigor mortis, and his stance was more relaxed.

  “I need to know where this came from,” said Costello. Ambiguity suggested the truffle might belong to the psychiatrist.

  “May I taste it?” Mortimer Cray was not picking up on the captain’s implication. He was only scrutinizing the fungus. “It looks like a Black Diamond, but the Chinese have a similar species. The taste would tell me where it came from.”

  Costello nodded to Chainy. The medical examiner sliced off a small section of the truffle and handed it to the psychiatrist, saying, “Fine. Now I’m serving fast food.”

  Mortimer Cray placed the slice on his tongue, as if it were a Communion wafer, and savored it for a moment. “It’s the real article, a Black Diamond. Tuber melanosporin. It comes from the Quercy and Périgord regions of France. Also the Umbria—”

  “Any local growers?”

  “Commercial cultivation? Here? Not likely, Captain. They only grow in the wild, usually in the vicinity—”

  “Oh, really?” Captain Costello took the faxes from Rouge’s hand. “I got a report here that says there’s fertilizer in the soil sample we scraped off that truffle. And we got another sample from the lining of the jacket.”

  Dr. Cray gave no indication that he had been trapped in a lie. “There are experiments going on in states with more compatible soil and climate—Texas, Oregon, Washington. But nothing local, and it’s only experimental—nothing on a commercial scale.”

  Costello turned to the medical examiner. “The kid’s jacket was found early this morning. Last night temperatures dropped to below freezing. Now that thing was in the lining. Can you tell me if it’s been frozen?”

  “Oh, hell, Leonard,” said Dr. Chainy, slightly annoyed. “I don’t need a microscope to see that it’s never been frozen. It’s still firm, just like a fresh mushroom. Ever see a frozen one? All squishy and brown?”

  “I agree.” Mortimer Cray picked up the specimen bag and probed the truffle through the plastic. “Very firm, very fresh. And you see this marbling? That would have disappeared if it had been frozen.”

  Costello moved toward Mortimer Cray. Rouge decided the game was still on as the captain crowded the other man’s personal space. “Now what kind of operation do you need to grow truffles indoors?” This was not a polite question; it was a demand.

  “It can’t be done.” The psychiatrist backed away from Costello and pushed his glasses back up the length of his nose. Small beads of sweat had made the frames slippery. “Not unless you want to grow a tree in the house. You need a symbiotic relationship to—”

  “See this report?” Costello waved the faxes and raised his voice, almost combative. “I’ve got a slew of bacteria here that thrive at high temperatures. That puts the truffle in a greenhouse, or at least indoors. And I’ve got a long list of crap under the heading ‘unique to local soil.’ So it’s a good bet the kid’s jacket hasn’t been traveling west of the Mississippi. That and the fertilizer tells me I’ve got a truffle factory in the neighborhood.”

  “Very unlikely,” said the psychiatrist, less sure of himself, more defensive now. “The truffles only grow with the roots of oak trees. You have to grow the tree specifically for that purpose, so the roots won’t be contaminated. It takes seven years to develop a symbiotic relationship between the tree root and the truffle.”

  “It was grown indoors,” said the captain.

  “Because of the bacteria and the fertilizer? No, the most likely scenario is that the truffle was dropped in a greenhouse or a potted plant. You might check with mushroom importers and—”

  Costello took back the plastic evidence bag and held it up to the psychiatrist’s face. “When this goes to the FBI lab, I’ll tell them to look into the greenhouse theory.” His words had a mildly threatening quality. “You have quite a greenhouse, don’t you, sir? Your niece tells me it’s better equipped than the average commercial outfit.”

  And this sounded like an accusation.

  “I assure you I am not growing truffles in—”

  “Oh, did I suggest that? I’m sorry.”

  Rouge thought the captain’s apology sounded pointedly insincere.

  “I want to know if you have any connections to people who do this kind of thing,” said Costello. “This experimenting. Has anyone, anywhere, ever grown truffles indoors?”

  “Only the North American strains. They’re ghastly. You never want to taste one. Any experiments on the Black Diamond would be proprietary information—not available to the public.”

  “So somewhere, it is going on.”

  “I’ve only heard of one experiment under greenhouse conditions. The fungus produced without the oak root had the DNA of a truffle, but not the taste. I assure you, this one was not grown indoors. It has the full-bodied taste of a Black Diamond. It was most certainly grown in symbiosis with the roots of an oak tree.” The doctor was regaining his authority now, almost indignant. “And you can’t grow a full-sized oak tree indoors.”

  Dr. Chainy pushed his chair back from the desk, apparently deciding that he was wasting his time at the microscope. “Well, I have an atrium in the house—right in the middle of the damn house. With that twenty-foot skylight, I guess I could plant a tree if I wanted to.”

  Mortimer Cray shook his head, as though Howard Chainy were an insane patient. “The root system would tear up the foundation of your house. And you can’t produce a truffle in less than seven years. Even a twenty-foot ceiling is not sufficient for a full-grown oak. Do you know how big that tree would be?”

  Captain Costello turned to Rouge. “I want photographs from the tax assessor’s office. We might be able to find an atrium in the aerial shots.”

  He turned on Mortimer Cray. “Doctor, if you had a very sick patient with an atrium in his house, would you tell me?”

  Costello let that remark waft around for a while, but it produced no effect on Mortimer Cray. The response was an unspoken no.

  Now there was a trace of contempt in Costello’s voice. “How deep in the ground do truffles grow, Dr. Cray?”

  The old man stared at the bagged fungus which had been found in a little girl’s jacket. In his face was the sudden realization that Costello was asking him to determine the possible depth of a child’s grave.

  “Six to eight inches below the surface.”

  A shallow grave.

  The captain’s voice changed gears into light diplomacy as he said, “Well, thank you for coming in, sir.” With an air of dismissal, he turned his back on the old man and spoke to Rouge. “I got the paperwork back on the pervert. I know it’s late, but I wanna go over it with you before you leave.”

  Rouge noted a stretch to Mortimer Cray’s neck, attenuating to a cocked ear. But Captain Costello did not elaborate to satisfy the man’s curiosity. When the captain turned back to Dr. Cray, he pretended surprise to see the psychiatrist still standing there. He extended his hand, saying, “Thank you again, sir. Would you like me to call someone to escort you back to—”

  “I can find the way, thank you.” But it was clearly with some regret that the doctor was leaving the room and passing into the hallway.

  Through the open door, Costello called out, “Oh, Dr. Cray? Those little kids are in deep trouble,
sir. So you’re not gonna warn this bastard, are you?”

  Mortimer Cray turned to stare at the captain, and then the door swung shut, blotting out the old man’s startled face.

  There was very little traffic in the squad room. The best-trusted investigators were chasing down importers of truffles and mushrooms, and others were visiting sites from the aerial photographs. Two of his people were watching the psychiatrist’s house, noting who came to visit. Captain Costello had wanted a wiretap on Mortimer Cray’s phone, but two judges had turned him down cold, forbidding him to violate the doctor-patient confidentiality of telephone consultations.

  The captain stood in the open doorway of the private office and looked out over the wide expanse of empty chairs and blank computers. Only Marge Jonas’s screen was alive with blue light and scrolling text. As she sat typing at the keyboard, she looked up for a moment to smile at him, a reward for playing nicely with her pet cop. Rouge Kendall was seated by the office window, engrossed in a file on Gerald Beckerman, the teacher from St. Ursula’s Academy.

  Costello returned to his desk and lowered his tired body into a well-padded leather chair. He pulled a brown paper bag from the lower desk drawer and opened it to set out a recently purchased bottle and two small paper cups the size of shot glasses. Did he need to ask if Rouge wanted a drink, or could he put that much faith in the IA reports from Dame’s Tavern? He wasn’t sure. So this little exercise with the whiskey bottle was more in the nature of a science experiment than a social gesture.

  The rookie investigator put up no fight, no protest, but neither did he act like a lush in need of a drink at the end of a long shift. He picked up his paper cup and sipped the golden vintage liquid, which might as well have been water for all this young cop cared.

  The captain decided that the boy drank because he wanted to, and not because of a physical craving. He well understood the anesthetic effects of alcohol.

  “I’ll save you some time,” said Costello, interrupting Rouge’s reading. “There’s no record on Beckerman in the States. But the Canadians want a few words with him.” The captain leaned over to tap the file Rouge was holding. “Check out the back sheet. Smart little bastard was working his shit in a summer camp over the border. Screening services don’t usually check outside the country. That’s why the school had nothing on him.”

  Rouge scanned this final sheet. “A rich Ivy League graduate working as a summer camp counselor? That’s minimum wage. Why didn’t they—”

  “He didn’t put that down when he applied for the job, and that was smart. That’s when the bells go off. The camp was a little mom-and-pop operation—no screening, and they paid him in cash. They didn’t even know he was a U.S. citizen.”

  Rouge set the papers on the edge of the desk. “But Beckerman’s only interested in little boys. That doesn’t help much.”

  “Well, he won’t get any more boys. We’re gonna hold him for the Canadians. The extradition is in the hopper. That was good work, kid. Any ideas on the truffle?”

  “If we’re looking for a mushroom fanatic with an interest in truffles, why not tell the troopers and the town cops?”

  “I want absolute containment, Rouge.”

  “But the cops and troopers know the area and the people.”

  “If this guy knows we’re close, those kids are dead. Not a single word goes over to the uniforms.”

  “Captain, one of the kids is already dead. You know that parka was in the ground. She was buried. So I can forget the runaway angle, right?”

  “No. I gave you a line of investigation, and you’re gonna stay on it, even if it’s just for show. As long as we’re searching for runaways, I got no problem with the home-owners. But if the press finds out we’re looking for evidence of murder, the summer people might revoke consent for the vacant houses. Then I need probable cause and specific warrants. Got the picture, kid? So you stay with the program, or I put you back in uniform. Any questions?”

  “If you’re gonna bust me down to—”

  “Okay, I lied.” Costello sat back and regarded the younger cop. “That’s not gonna happen, Rouge. I know this assignment was hard on you—two little girls the same age as your sister. When they found Susan’s body, you must have died. You’ve got to be reliving that.” And he knew what it was costing this young man. “Officially, I need to keep you on the runaway angle as long as the press loves your face. As for what you turn up on the side—you bring that to me. I’m always here, kid. If you need help, if you got questions.”

  Rouge finished his shot of whiskey and crumpled the cup as he leaned forward in a pose for confidential words. Before he said anything more, it was understood that this was just between the two of them. “I know Susan’s photograph was part of Ali Cray’s briefing. She must have seen a connection, but you took it off the easel.”

  “That never made any sense to me. It didn’t follow the pattern. It would have confused the—”

  “She said the bastard was flexible, changeable. Suppose Paul Marie didn’t kill my sister?”

  “The priest? Oh, for the—” One hand covered Costello’s face for a moment, and then it fell away. He shook his head slowly from side to side. When he spoke, his voice was close to a whisper.

  “Don’t.”

  It was a single-syllable instruction for Rouge to leave that idea alone—just the one word, dropped gently in the air between them, and said with the greatest kindness. It was a caution against opening old wounds, bleeding from them, and dying all over again.

  The windows of every house along the shoreline had gone dark, and the clear night sky was pocked with starlight. This part of the hill was clear of trees, and unchecked breezes swept upward from the lake to rush around the stones. A racket of dead leaves spiraled in a wind devil’s funnel and ran a dusty circle around his legs.

  Rouge Kendall closed the iron gate behind him, as though he had entered a proper residence. He knew the legends on every marker between the gate and his sister’s grave. The corner stone in the family plot bore the year 1805. Next to this reserved section lay older remains of the postman’s progenitors.

  Among the elaborate pieces of marble adorned with lengthy scripts, scrolls and cherubs, his sister’s stone was a thing apart, austere and pure white. Only her name was engraved above the dates of her birth and her murder. Some people found it curious that there was no carved sentiment, no line of poetry. But after Susan’s corpse had been found, her parents had nothing left to say. Their silence had lasted for years.

  This was the first time Rouge had come to the cemetery without flowers.

  As a small child in grief therapy, he had wandered the greenhouse with Dr. Mortimer Cray and learned the ancient Persian art of flower-talking, studying the meanings of floral shape and essence as a second language. After these sessions, he would visit the graveyard with white carnations, a child’s message of ardent love. In the spring he had brought bluebells to remind Susan of his constancy. He could speak to her, but they could never again be more than half alive. Twin had not been cleaved from twin; he was forever in two places, above and below ground.

  Rouge looked up into the darkness of the firmament. Instead of the stars, he saw an open rectangle of light blue sky rimmed with mourners in dark clothing. And then the first shovel of dirt flew into their eyes—his and Susan’s.

  He turned his face down to the simple monument, as if, after all this time, he might find some overlooked, unread line written there. And there it was. Another visitor had been here before him—and recently. He crouched down by the base of the stone and picked up two flowers, an unsigned message of hue and form. The purple hyacinth stood for sorrow, and the peony for shame.

  Who gave them to you, Susan?

  Not our mother. She never comes here anymore.

  The base of each stem was cut at a slant, the mark of a florist shop. But they might have grown in a private greenhouse. The one who left these flowers knew something about his sister’s death; Rouge was certain of that. And th
e involvement went deeper than guilty knowledge, for the sentiments also spoke of complicity.

  Angry now, he roamed among the stones until he found wreaths and bouquets from a recent funeral. He stole a red rose and brought it back to Susan’s grave, stripping off the leaves as he walked, but leaving every thorn. In the poetic art of the Persians, this told his sister’s visitor, You have everything to fear.

  The two cars were the only vehicles on Lakeshore Drive at three o’clock in the morning. The air was bitter cold, and exhaust was ghosting from the tailpipes as the Bentley and the Ford converged from opposite directions. It was a chance encounter, and each driver had surprised the other.

  Instead of passing, going on in their separate directions, the cars stopped. The drivers acted in unison, each clearing a face-wide circle in the fogged window glass. They only stared at one another, with no words or gestures, and then they moved on—Gwen’s father heading east, and Sadie’s father heading west. The cars moved slowly, for one might easily miss a lost child in the dark.

  The dog stood on two legs, choking himself on the chain with each attempt to lunge. The man smiled at every whimper, every whine and bark, knowing that the starving animal was enraged because he could smell the meat but not get at it.

  The man worked by the eerie glow of the cellar lights, cutting a shallow rectangle as the dirt softly ploffed on the ground beside the second hole. The air was moist and warm; the earth gave way with ease. And now he paused to lean on his shovel and look down at his work, two tiny graves side by side—one full and one waiting.

  six

  Investigators and agents ate their dinners from brown paper bags, take-out containers and microwave packages. Soda cans and coffee cups littered every surface in the squad room. Ali Cray jumped in her skin as one of the cans crashed into a metal wastebasket behind her chair. She looked around to see the offender three desks away. The FBI man who had made the long shot gave her an apologetic smile as he resumed feeding from a plastic dinner tray.